For the past few days, there has been only talk about the sad state of affairs of the fugitive and blocked on the territory of Russia TV channel "Rain" *.

After the careless, albeit truthful words of the presenter Alexei Korostelev about the state of “ours”, as he called it, the Russian army and a request to send information about the problems of military personnel.

He did this, it is worth noting in fairness, in order to help “with equipment and simply with basic amenities at the front” with the help of coverage of the topic.

It's commendable, you say?

Only now the concern and compassion expressed by the presenter did not please the Latvian government, which at first threatened Dozhd with deprivation of the broadcasting license, a ban on the presenter's stay in the country and entry there, and then completely expelling the whole editorial office.

Threatened - but took it and put it into practice.

The National Electronic Media Council of Latvia annulled the license of Dozhd.

Now the channel is homeless again and will broadcast exclusively on YouTube.

Unless the lazy one joked about the length of the channel’s work in supposedly dictatorial and terribly censored Russia, where the opposition platform worked for 12 years, and in supposedly free Europe its activities, no matter how the channel’s team flirted with the European information agenda, lasted exactly 4.5 month.

One can, of course, speculate on the topic of short-sightedness of thinking and the lack of sensitivity or diplomacy skills among the management of Dozhd, since they did not realize how far the Russophobic style of broadcasting should have extended in order to fit into the agenda of the host country.

But more interesting is the behavior of the general director of Dozhd, Natalya Sindeeva, and her reaction after the threats from the Latvian government.

Leading Korostelev was ruthlessly fired.

It turns out that the channel does not hold on to its own.

And the guys who left everything for the sake of working at Dozhd and, having changed their place of deployment, moved to Europe, turned out to be just pawns.

Although I'm not surprised.

Sindeeva has done this before.

She did everything to cover her ass at someone else's expense.

For example, when she arranged mass layoffs, just to keep high salaries for top leaders like Sobchak and Mongait.

Or when she did everything just to create the appearance of the channel's struggle with the "brutal Russian regime."

Well, or vice versa: "regime" - with a small, but so bold (hehe) channel.

“The consequence of a political order,” as Mikhail Zygar, former editor-in-chief of the channel, then called it.

I remember how a source from the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media told me about Sindeeva's gross violations when concluding contracts with cable networks in Russia.

Then it was presented under the sauce of “mass shutdown of the channel in all regions of the country”, although in reality the channel greatly inflated financial requirements, the CEO wanted disproportionately large payments from cable operators and chose money, not her viewers.

That is, "Rain" could remain on the button on the telly and be accessible to the majority, but no.

Then there would be no beautiful legend.

About that very small and bold channel for an elitist, snobbish, noisy minority.

Perhaps what happened to Korostelev was worth it to see the tears and hysteria of Sindeeva, which happened to her during the broadcast, in order to explain herself.

Not once in all these years did she admit her mistakes and never once did she publicly blunder so as to condemn her own.

A frank betrayal of top management, which, obviously, in order to curry favor with the European community, fired the presenter instead of a reprimand or a public apology, followed by the dismissal of three more channel presenters as a sign of solidarity, an attempt by the CEO to save face ... Just "Santa Barbara » some.

The creakle party has always been overly dramatic.

Or they could just do a good job.

It's interesting what's next for us.

In the next episode, so to speak.

* Mass media recognized as a foreign agent by decision of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation of 08/20/2021.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.